Saturday, March 19, 2011

UPDATED: Knut the Polar Bear has Died

UPDATE: Nothing new on cause of death but a reader asked if we could add a couple of the other Knut pics we used over the years. From September 2007's "The Arctic: Boating Paradise":

...Well first I thought of Knut. Cute, cuddly Knut. But not the cute Knut of last winter:

No. I thought of the morbidly obese, malingering Knut:

Knut Feigning Sore Paw to Get Attention

By David Crossland in Berlin

Berlin Zoo's polar bear superstar Knut is so lonely that he has been deliberately limping to get some attention, says his keeper Thomas Dörflein, who knows the shaggy cub better than anyone else. The ruse is working: Visitors have been cooing over him and alarmed fans have been writing in from as far away as Brazil and Hawaii.

DPA

Knut sticking out his tongue at visitors last week.
Knut the celebrity polar bear has been receiving get-well messages from around the world ever since he slipped on a wet rock and hurt his paw last Friday -- but his keeper at Berlin Zoo thinks he's only pretending to be in pain because he likes the attention.

Courtroom wranglings over price of famous Berlin polar bear Knut
Berlin's famous zoo resident, Knut the polar bear, was the subject of financial wranglings Tuesday, as zoo chiefs tried to agree on the sale of the bear from Neumuenster Zoo to Berlin Zoo, where he was born and gained worldwide fame.

Peter Druewa, the chief executive of Neumuenster Zoo which owns Knut, said he was not prepared to sell the bear for less than 700,000 euros (944,000 dollars), while Berlin Zoo refused to pay "a cent more" than 350,000 euros.